Tell Me How You Really Feel was SO CUTE!

I adored the depth to the main characters, Sana and Rachel and thoroughly enjoyed all the film references.

The exploration of femininity and the way it challenged Rachel’s negative perceptions of ‘pretty girls’. The parallel between Sana and Helen of Troy throughout the novel was so interesting and added a lot of background depth to her and successfully built up Rachel’s character development as well.

Their relationship made my little heart flutter, it was everything I could have wanted when I was in high school and I honestly love a bit of miscommunication sometimes with the enemies to lovers vibes. It was equal parts playful and angsty and I feel like it struck the perfect balance!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the audiobook in exchange for my honest thoughts. The author, Amindah Mae Safi, did a wonderful job reading and I had a great time listening to her characters go about their lives in the way that she intended them to.

This was quite frankly one of the most refreshing YA contemporary romances I have recently encountered. The fact that it is not only sapphic but also includes quite a bit of diversity? Brava! I loved the depth of the story that was achieved mostly from the perspective of family dynamics and not necessarily the plot. I personally identify so much with Sona because she broke the mold of burnt out gifted kid in the way she knows how. I really can’t wait to read more from this author.

Thanks Netgalley for this ARC!

This book showed the feelings of being a teen/young adult and having to choose your life path. It showed different cultural backgrounds and faiths which is always nice to see and it explored how the perceptions of others can influence your behaviour as well as different family dynamics. I thought all the characters were well fleshed out and showed how messy real life is despite how it may look from the outside.

DNF @11%

I wanted to love this so much solely on the cover, because I love it. But I found myself hating the writing and the characters.

While I understand that some characters aren’t meant to always be likeable and sometimes the characters development is compelling to keep pushing through. I just couldn’t see myself continuing this. Rachel was completely insufferable from the moment she was on page that I just couldn’t help but want to skip her and just get to Sana. I didn’t see what Sana or even Diesel saw in her to make them like her so much. When she was hateful for no reason, completely judging everyone and being a bitch just to be one. I can get behind unlikeable characters and even the hate to love trope but this was not it.

And maybe I’m just getting to old to read young adult and maybe that was all my fault.

Beautiful, I loved every moment.
To be honest, it’s the first time I’ve listened to an audiobook and wow.
The story of Sona and Rachel was cute and original, the pacing was great, the characters where really lovable (although my favorite was Sona), the protagonists problems where believable.
I’m conclusion, I loved the book
The narrator, who happened to be the author did a great job. The audiobook is divided in different sections not by every chapter.
Thank you to NetGalley for the arc.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

rachel and sana’s story was such a great romance. big fan of a classic miscommunication leading to a great enemies-to-lovers story. and rachel and sana were such fully-realized characters, as were all of the secondary characters. however, as an audiobook, it fell a little flat. i appreciate that the author narrated this, but i do wish it had had an audiobook narrator. at times, words were stumbled over, or the audio seemed clearly edited, or sentences were rushed that felt like they shouldn’t have been. it was a fine listen, but not one i will be purchasing to relisten. however, this book has been on my TBR for ages, so it was nice to finally get to hear rachel and sana’s story.

taylor swift vibe: wonderland

recommended for: anyone who wants a great slow-burn enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story

𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗴𝗲.

The audiobook is narrated by the author herself and I don't really like it. But I think it's more of a voice preference so my suggestion is to listen to the sample first to see if the audiobook suits you before purchasing it.

Storywise, this is not a coming out story. Instead, it's a coming of age, young adult novel where the main characters learn to figure themselves out. On the surface, Sana leads the "perfect" life as the pretty cheerleader who has a spot to study medicine at Princeton, but underneath it, there is a lot of self-contemplation. Rachel, on the other hand, has a chip on her shoulder and there's quite a lot of esteem issues for her to work on. The characters are interesting enough for me but I know that some readers have trouble liking Rachel because she's brash and rude. But I don't dislike her and I think Sana is a sweet girl. On top of that, there's a bit of cultural element to the story that I enjoyed as Sana's family is Indian.

I'm not sure if this can be considered an enemies to lovers story since Sana has been harbouring a crush on Rachel for the longest time, but they clash because of Rachel's self-defence mechanism and only got to know each other better working on Rachel's film project. I think the romance can be better developed and while I think a couple of their interactions is sweet, it feels much too premature to talk about love.

If you love: the lesbian and himbo dynamic, SO MUCH teenage angst, Lorelai Gilmore as a TV mom, the possibility that Jess and Jules get together in a re-write of Bend it like Beckham, and that *big moment of declaring your love in the middle of the airport in the eleventh hour*—then this is the book for you.

Also, I absolutely love the dedication! “For Amy Sherman Palladino. Thank you for never giving Rory Gilmore a decent boyfriend. She's always had Paris.”

I love that the author was the narrator, she does a great job providing distinct voices (literally) to each of the characters. I would set a slightly faster pace for the 'base' pace, but overall Aminah Mae Safi was a wonderful storyteller (with the plot and by lending her voice to the story).

As a freshman, Sana Khan asked out Rachel Rechtit, but Rachel, an aspiring director, was convinced that she was in one of the movies she has watched so many times – beautiful cheerleader Sana could surely only be asking her out as a prank. Now, Rachel has to cast Sana as the lead in her senior project.

I liked that Rachel and Sana both knew who they were. I loved the family dynamics of both girls. Rachel’s constant negativity at the beginning was annoying, but she got better as the book went on. It was precious getting to see Rachel and Sana bond as they got to know each other before <i>finally</i> crossing the line to something more! I loved Sana’s friend Diesel and would love to see a spinoff featuring him.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.

I read the hardcover edition of this book in 2020, and really enjoyed it, so I was happy to give the audiobook a go. The author does a wonderful job infusing life and passion for her story in her narration of this audio version of her book.

The rest of this review was written in 2020:
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Cute little queer diverse enemies-to-love story focusing on two girls of colour where neither has to come out or ever really gets shamed for being gay, they just are who they are.

The basic story conceit was a bit of a stretch for me in that I found Rachel was won over to not-hating Sana pretty quickly, all things considered, so the idea that she had held a grudge and absolutely hated her since freshman year when Sana initially asked her out didn't strike me as honest. Like, Rachel capital "h" HATES Sana until they work together...and then she just doesn't. She implies later on after they actually start kissing that basically "it's no secret that Sana is gay in the school, it's just taken for granted and/or ignored" so it may have played better if it was more about just disbelief due to insecurities that someone as beautiful as Sana would be interested in Rachel rather than trying to play up her loathing.

Ok, all that out of the way, once the story does get going, it's quite cute. Told in 3rd person limited POV, it alternates between Sana's and Rachel's stories. Both were very distinct, as are the worlds they come from. Sana is an overachiever who probably wants to be a doctor from a Persian-Indian family (I believe, someone correct me if I got that wrong), raised by her single mother (who chose her own path, much to her parents dismay). Rachel is a wannabe filmmaker of Jewish Mexican descent raised by her single father after her mother left them. Both have a lot of baggage, justifiably so. I liked both, though Sana seemed the more confident POV, which surprised me as personally I probably am more like Rachel (movie buff, not athletic, etc).

When the romance does get going, however, oof, are the two of them cute together. Like, really incredibly cute. Their first kiss made my gay little heart giddy with joy. Granted, more melodrama awaited them and it would be nice to have more time in the book to have them together, but I think I say that about every queer YA book I read, so it's nothing new.

I also found L.A. to be a distinct character in the book. I've never been, but if felt supremely real and alive due to Safi's descriptions.

Good stuff.

I thought this was a good YA contemporary book; I enjoyed reading about the characters as they felt so real. The plot was interesting and I would recommend it

3.5/5 stars

This book was marketed to me as a more diverse Gilmore Girls where Rory and Paris end up together, which is a fun premise in theory. Unfortunately, I have a very love/hate relationship with both Rory and Paris, and the same thing applied to Sana and Rachel in this book. While I think they're fairly interesting and nuanced characters, I find them to also be pretty annoying a lot of the time.

This was a reoccurring problem throughout the book. There were certainly sections I thought were fun and cute, but there were also several periods when I thought the plot became a bit repetitive, boring, and overall just annoying. I do think the good outweighed the bad, and I ended up liking the romance pretty well by the end, but it sure was a journey to get to that point.

I read the audiobook version from NetGalley. I thought it was fun that the author narrated her own book. I do think Sana and Rachel's voices were a little too similar though because, especially at the beginning, I had trouble realizing the the point of view had changed and got confused about who was speaking.

Overall, it was a pretty standard sapphic YA romance, it just wasn't necessarily as great as I was expecting it to be. Still, I recommend it if this is a genre you enjoy.

thank you so much to Netgalley for providing me with this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!!

I wasn't sure what to expect. I mean, I'm not someone who constantly listens to audiobooks so when I saw it on the shelf to request and remembered how much Lala of BooksAndLala loved it years ago, I decided to give it a try. And I loved every second of it.
I couldn't stop my squeals or laughs every time I listened to an interaction between Sana and Rachel. I became soooo invested in this pair, I felt as if I was in their footsteps with them, trying to decide my own future. And I love how the topic was brought on, how difficult can be for some people. I felt everything and I think the audiobooks contributed to that experience.
My only 'but' would be that sometimes I would get confused as to who was in the scene, why such a character showed up so late and then I realized who she was. Or that sometimes the narration would go on and on about the thoughts of both MCs when I already knew about them. But those are minor details compared to how much the book made me feel.
Overall, I loved it and I would love to continue trying new audiobooks from Netgalley 💜💜

This one was an okay read, a bit boring at times as I felt that there wasn’t too much plot happening and things were just sort of happening. They just watched movies together and filmed a movie? I found Rachel and Sana to have not too much chemistry as nothing really stood out to me as why they should really be together. The audiobook took a bit getting used to as it was hard to differentiate between the voices of Rachel and Sana, and I found the switching between the two POV’s from a third person point of view to be a bit confusing. Overall I enjoyed this read but nothing particularly stood out as amazing.

This was a fun read! The characters were very interesting to read about and the romance was for sure very realistic. I loved the whole cinema aspect and learning about what goes into making a movie. The parallels were very pertinent and made the book stand out from other young adult romances.

I'm so sorry but this book was not for me.

The two mcs are so incredibly silly and immature. The moral of this story was teenagers know what's best and adults are dumb?

I really didn't like this one.

A sweet easy story that has been the perfect companion to my breakfast the last few days. I wouldn't have picked this book if it wasn't on Audiobook and I am glad I did.

I listened to the audiobook of Tell Me How You Really Feel, and I can safely say that whether you read or listen to the book you will audibly gasp at certain parts. It shows us the journey of these two ambitious young adults, it gives you the view of what each character is going through. A matter that anyone in high school and going into college, if that is their choice, can feel connected to. But it also appeals to young adult who doesn't want to follow the path others have paved for them. I fear I will share spoilers, so I will stop but it's a really well-written book, I love that the author narrated the book in the audible version of it. The image on the front cover is very well the characters, no one can tell me differently, it is exactly how I imagined them.

A great new adult novel about two college women. Through misunderstanding/anger, a love story and movie, grow. Narrated by the author which was a surprise. Author narrations can be tricky and thankfully this author is also a great performer.

This book was fine but unfortunately i don't think having the audiobook narrated by the author herself was a good choice. The story itself just was not brought to life through her narration and fell flat where it shouldn't have. I would often forget who's POV we were in because there was zero differentiation between the two characters. I think I would've liked the story better had i not tried the audio version, which is a shame.